Transcendence

What enabled us to go from simple stone tools to smartphones? How did bands of hunter-gatherers evolve into multinational empires? Readers of Sapiens will say a cognitive revolution — a dramatic evolutionary change that altered our brains, turning primitive humans into modern ones — caused a cultural explosion. In Transcendence, Gaia Vince argues instead that modern humans are the product of a nuanced coevolution of our genes, environment, and culture that goes back into deep time. She explains how, through four key elements — fire, language, beauty, and time — our species diverged from the evolutionary path of all other animals, unleashing a compounding process that launched us into the Space Age and beyond. Provocative and poetic, Transcendence shows how a primate took dominion over nature and turned itself into something marvelous.

What's Inside

Reader Reviews

Praise

"An imaginative and inspiring
adventure into the origins and evolution of what we hold most dear: our human
culture."—Uta Frith, Emeritus Professor of
Cognitive Development UCL

"This
book goes from the Big Bang to the Hundred Thousand Genome Project to make a
convincing case that Homo sapiens has become a super-organism.
I learned a lot from it and so will you."—Steve Jones, Emeritus Professor of Human
Genetics UCL and author of Here Comes the Sun